Posts Tagged ‘federal employees’

Under Barry Husseins’ pathetic failure of leadership, 24% of Americans believe that the recession will last 2 years. And another 51% believe that it will last MORE than two years. Given the fact that Obama will only be president for another two years, and given the fact that Obama was elected to fix the economy, what we basically have is a statement from 75% of Americans that Obama will be a completely failed president.

Here’s another one, and allow me to quote from below:

Only 13 percent of Americans say Mr. Obama’s economic programs, among them the stimulus package, have helped them personally. Twenty-three percent say they have hurt, while 63 percent say they have had no effect.

Now, understand: the stimulus is officially $862 billion, but it’s actual cost according to the Congressional Budget Office will be $3.27 TRILLION. And 87% of the American people say that this beyond supermassive sum of money which will burden our children for decades either had no effect at all or actually HURT them.

Now, this $3.27 trillion will surely ultimately be ripped out of the hide of the US economy. It’s only a matter of time. An increase in the money supply is rather like an overdose of drugs. And in this case the effect of the overdose will be hyperinflation. Basically, the moment we have any kind of genuine recovery, our staggering deficit is going to begin to create an ultimately gigantic inflation rate. Why? Because we have massively artificially increased our money supply beyond our ability to actually produce real wealth, and that means that money will ultimately be devalued. There’s simply no way it can’t be. If simply printing money solved financial problems, the government could just mail everyone several million dollars, and we could all retire. The problem is that more money chasing a limited supply of goods simply pushes up prices higher and higher without doing anything to solve the underlying economic problems. If we have a recovery, with increased economic activity, there will be increased demand on the money supply, forcing an upward climb in interest rates as a means of controlling the currency. And then we’ll begin to seriously pay for Obama’s and the Democrat Party’s sins. Paradoxically, the only thing preventing hyperinflation now is the recession, because people aren’t buying anything and therefore aren’t competing for those limited goods.

That said, there is solid evidence that the stimulus actually HURT THE ECONOMY AND EMPLOYMENT IN THE RIGHT-HERE-AND-NOW by sucking money out of the private sector where it would have been put to good use and instead funneling it through the government were it was pissed away on political boondoggles and bureaucratic inefficiencies. The evidence is clear: the governments that did not pass huge stimulus packages have fared much better than those like the US which did.

A further fact in our economic and political collapse is that Obama is creating a permanent elite class of government bureaucrats. USA Today found that “At a time when workers’ pay and benefits have stagnated, federal employees’ average compensation has grown to more than double what private sector workers earn.” Obama has massively expanded government, even as the the real pie for everyone (the economy) has been shrinking. Since government workers don’t actually create wealth, but merely live off the taxes paid by those who create wealth, and since there are more and more government workers and fewer and fewer private sector workers, we’re heading for a real problem. Again, “paradoxically” is a good word, as paradoxically Obama is creating a ruling class over the people who consume the peoples’ wealth in the name of helping the people.

And all of the above contributes to why Gerald Celente says America is about to experience what he calls “the Greatest Depression.”

A majority of Americans have a negative impression of the economy and expect the effects of the recession to linger for years, according to a new CBS News poll.

Most also say President Obama has spent too little time on the economy, which Americans cite as the country’s most important problem by a wide margin.

Three in four Americans now say the effects of the recession will last another two years or more. More than eight in 10 say the condition of the economy is bad, up five points from last month.

Just 25 percent of Americans say the economy is getting better – down from 41 percent in April. About half say it is staying the same, and the remaining quarter say it is getting worse.

More than half of Americans – 52 percent – say Mr. Obama has spent too little time dealing with the economy.

And with unemployment near 10 percent, the economy is their priority: Thirty-eight percent volunteer it as the country’s most important problem. That far outpaces the percentage that cited the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan (seven percent), health care (six percent), the deficit (five percent), and the oil spill in the Gulf (five percent).

The county’s most important economic problem, Americans say, is jobs, volunteered by 38 percent of respondents. Coming in a distant second was the national debt, the deficit and spending, cited by 10 percent in the poll, which was conducted between July 9th and 12th.

Just 27 percent of Americans say their local job market is good. Seventy-one percent call it bad. Nearly one in four expect their household finances to get worse over the next year, twice the percentage that expects their finances to improve.

Only 13 percent of Americans say Mr. Obama’s economic programs, among them the stimulus package, have helped them personally. Twenty-three percent say they have hurt, while 63 percent say they have had no effect.

Twenty-three percent say the stimulus package made the economy better – down from 32 percent in April and 36 percent last September. Eighteen percent say the stimulus package damaged the economy, while 56 percent say it had no effect.

The president’s job approval rating on the economy now stands at 40 percent – a drop of five points from last month. Fifty-four percent disapprove of his handling of the issue.

In general, Americans see Mr. Obama as spending too little time on the economy and the oil spill in the Gulf, and too much time on health care: Thirty-nine percent say he has spent too much time on the issue, while 24 percent say he spent too little time.

Americans do believe the president takes decisive action, with two and three suggesting he does. But more than half (53 percent) say he is not tough enough in his approach.

Americans are evenly split, meanwhile, on whether the president shares their priorities. Two in three believe he cares at least to some degree about people like them.

The president’s overall approval rating now stands at 44 percent, matching his disapproval rating. It stood at 47 percent last month.

The Issues: Economic Priorities

Most Americans – 53 percent – say the best way to get the economy moving is to cut taxes. Thirty-seven percent instead choose government spending on job creation.

Americans are split about how the federal government should spend its money: Forty-six percent say the priority should be spending to create jobs, and 47 percent want to put the focus on deficit reduction.

More than half want Congress to extend unemployment benefits now, a Democratic priority that has been blocked by Congressional Republicans.

Americans are roughly evenly split on whether BP will stop the flow of oil in the Gulf of Mexico by the end of the summer. Most (58 percent) are not confident that the company will fairly compensate those affected by the spill.

Wall Street Reform:

With Democrats poised to pass sweeping reforms of Wall Street this week, a majority (57 percent) say bank regulations should be increased.

Most Americans favor a timetable for withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. Fifty-four percent back a timetable, while 41 percent oppose one. Mr. Obama has said the United States will start removing troops from the country in July of next year, but only if conditions on the ground permit.

Elena Kagan:

Most Americans can’t say whether Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan should be confirmed. Among those who have an opinion, 21 percent say yes and 19 percent say no. Less than half say they are closely following news about her nomination.

The Long Run:

Despite their concerns about the economy, Americans do not believe their country is on the decline. Fifty-nine percent expect things to get better in the long run, while 36 percent say America’s best days have passed.

This poll was conducted among a random sample of 966 adults nationwide, interviewed by telephone July 9-12, 2010. Phone numbers were dialed from random digit dial samples of both standard land-line and cell phones. The error due to sampling for results based on the entire sample could be plus or minus three percentage points. The error for subgroups is higher.

This poll release conforms to the Standards of Disclosure of the National Council on Public Polls.

Does it bother you that Obama’s Secretary of the Treasury is a documented tax cheat? Does it bother you that Charles Rangel, the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee who wrote our nation’s tax laws, is a big time documented tax cheat?

If you answered “no,” you are a Democrat. And a hypocrite.

It is amazing how many wealthy Democrats there are – both in elected or political office and in the private sector – who think high taxes are great, and then do everything they can to avoid the very high taxes they want everyone else to pay.

What follows is a demonstration of the fact that Democrats want to shelter government employees – who are paid with YOUR money – from being responsible for the legitimate consequences which should follow from working for the very government you are screwing.

Why would the Democrats take such a repugnant stand? Two reasons: 1) Most government employees are unionized; 2) these unions support and work for Democrats.

A legislative compromise that would have allowed agencies to fire tax-delinquent federal employees fell apart on Thursday.

The compromise softened an amendment to the 2009 Contracting and Tax Accountability Act that Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, introduced earlier this week. The act already would prohibit companies that don’t pay their taxes from winning federal contracts; Chaffetz’s amendment extended that principle to “seriously delinquent” federal employees and congressional staffers.

Modified language that would have provided federal employees with due process protection and a hardship exemption won support from House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y. But, Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee on the federal workforce, and other Democrats, said the compromise amendment still was unduly harsh because it defined delinquency as the issuance of a lien by the Internal Revenue Service, which could be an early stage in resolving a tax dispute.

Chaffetz, however, argued that the amendment offered protection to employees who were working to settle the tax disputes.

Democrats also raised concerns about whether the amendment would overburden the Office of Personnel Management, which would be responsible for administering the provision.

As debate over the provision disintegrated and Democrats called for an opportunity to hold a hearing, Towns pulled both the amendment and the bill from the floor and postponed a vote.

A committee source said there was too much “confusion” with the amendment and lingering issues needed to be resolved.

“We wanted to take a break to make sure there were no unintended consequences with the bill,” the source said.

“I am thoroughly disappointed that Democrats rejected the chairman’s compromise and stubbornly refused to work with him on an effort to hold federal employees to the same standard as the private sector,” said Rep Darrell Issa, R-Calif., ranking member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. “There needs to be consequences for both contractors and federal employees who fail to pay their taxes.”

“Chairman Towns’ compromise proposal on my amendment was a sensible approach, and it’s puzzling that members on the other side didn’t agree,” Chaffetz said. “The IRS already has a similar policy in place and they have demonstrated that it works.”

Chaffetz said the tax delinquency rate for the Treasury Department — which includes the IRS – -is less than 1 percent, compared to 3.4 percent for the rest of the federal government. He said the government fails to collect roughly $1 billion in taxes annually from about 100,000 federal employees.

The committee source said it was not clear if the issues with the amendment would require a hearing or if they could be worked out in a private meeting with the IRS.

Imagine that: the very same Democrats who rushed the stimulus through so quickly that not one single elected member of Congress had a chance to read the damn bills, and the very same Democrats who have repeatedly tried to rush ObamaCare through, suddenly have found legislation that requires “taking a break” and “making sure there are no unintended consequences.” An $862 billion stimulus package didn’t require that kind of consideration; a complete takeover of our health care system doesn’t require that kind of consideration; but firing tax cheating government employees is something that must be studied to the nth degree.

A 2,700-page Senate health care bill monstrosity can be rushed through by any means possible; but please, oh please let us not rush into getting rid of taxpayer-paid tax cheats.

The explanation that Democrats care about all the various nuances of rights that government workers who haven’t bothered to pay their taxes supposedly have is a joke: if they wanted to do anything about these taxpayer-paid tax cheats, they would have wheeled and dealed to get a bill. The simple fact of the matter is that they didn’t WANT a bill.

Taxpayer-paid unionized government employees who cheat on their taxes have more money to fork over to Democrats. And the Democrats who would never even consider tort reform because their lawsuit-happy lawyers wouldn’t like it are the very same Democrats who won’t step on their union supporters’ toes. Over anything.